1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to transferring locale-specific human language data between systems running in different languages and in particular to automatically switching the language in which text data is displayed or processed upon migrating between systems running in different languages. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to switching between fields of a multi-fields text string class encapsulating human language variants of a text string based on an underlying language property.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multinational companies often run information system (IS),networks which span multiple countries spread around the globe. To maximize the usefulness of such networks, operations within each country tend to run in the local language of the country. Where possible, names of abstract objects in user applications are in the local language and match the local language organization, city, or human names which the abstract objects represent. In the case of system management software, often abstract objects would represent each of a global enterprise""s local offices.
Central management of such a global network may be difficult or impossible when abstract object names utilize the local language and the local language""s underlying character set. For offices located in Egypt, abstract objects would most naturally be named in Arabic; offices in Russia would name objects utilizing the Cyrillic character set; and for offices in Japan, objects would be named in Japanese. A problem arises, however, when a enterprise""s headquarters IS staff attempts to examine these objects. The IS staff at the multinational headquarters located in the United States is unlikely to be able to read Arabic or Japanese, or even recognize Cyrillic characters.
Japanese, for example, is a logosyllabic or ideographic language which does not have an alphabet representing simple sounds, but instead has a very large character set with symbols (xe2x80x9cideographsxe2x80x9d) corresponding to concepts and objects rather than simple sounds. For instance, the Joyo Kanji List (Kanji for Daily Use) adopted for the Japanese language in 1981 includes 1945 symbols. Users unfamiliar with the Kanji characters will have difficulty identifying a particular abstract object named in Japanese, as well as difficulty even discussing such abstract objects over the telephone with an English and Japanese-speaking counter-part.
Additionally, merely seeing an ideograph may provide no clue as to the correct meaning or pronunciation since, in Japanese, the same character may have multiple meanings or pronunciations. For instance, the character depicted in FIG. 6A may mean either xe2x80x9cWestxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cSpainxe2x80x9d; the symbol depicted in FIG. 6B may be pronounced either xe2x80x9chayashixe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9crinxe2x80x9d (or xe2x80x9clinxe2x80x9d); and the characters depicted in FIG. 6C may be pronounced xe2x80x9csuga no,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9csuga ya,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9ckan no,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ckan ya.xe2x80x9d This circumstance is based in part on the history of the Japanese language, in which the Kanji characters were adopted from the Chinese language. Thus, for example, the xe2x80x9crinxe2x80x9d symbol depicted in FIG. 6B is On-Yomi, basically a simulation of the Chinese pronunciation when the character was imported to Japan, while xe2x80x9chayashixe2x80x9d is Kun-Yomi, a Japanese word assigned to the character which has the same meaning.
Data originating on a Japanese system and sent to a system running in English is therefore unintelligible to a user who only speaks and reads English. Even if the user understands the text, however, the data is also likely to be meaningless to the system. Keyword searches, for example, for an English word are not likely to identify foreign counterpart words as matches. System messages from the originating system will also be incomprehensible to the receiving system. Currently portions of distributed systems operating in different human languages can communicate only by utilizing encoded values to perform lookups in message catalogs, or by exchanging data in only one language.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a mechanism for transferring locale-specific data between systems running in different languages. It would further be advantageous for the mechanism to automatically switch the language employed for display or processing of text data upon crossing boundaries between systems running in different languages.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a method, system and computer program product for transferring locale-specific human language data between systems running in different languages.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method, system and computer program product for automatically switching the language in which text data is displayed or processed upon migrating between systems running in different languages.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method, system and computer program product for switching between fields of a multi-field text string class encapsulating human language variants of a text string based on an underlying language property.
The foregoing objects are achieved as is now described. A multi-field text string object is employed to transfer data across systems running in different human languages. The text in the characters/language of the originating system is stored in a first field; a common or cross-language representation, preferably a phonetic spelling of the text in latin characters, is stored in a second field. Upon migration of the multi-field text string object from one system to another, a language property of the multi-field text string object (which should match a language property of the originating system) is compared to a language property of receiving system. If the language properties coincide, the contents of the first field are utilized for display and processing of the text string; if the language properties do not coincide, the multi-field text string object automatically switches fields and presents the contents of the second fieldxe2x80x94the common, cross-language representationxe2x80x94for display and processing. Systems running in completely incongruous languages, such as Russian and Japanese, may thus meaningfully share data without relying on encoded lookups and without being restricted to exchanging data in one language only.